Clinical workflow in a medical procedure room using a major medical device like computerized tomography (CT) or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), or radiation therapy linear accelerator machine tends to be cumbersome and manually driven without the benefits of the latest mobile technologies. Typical actions that are performed inside the medical procedure room include patient setup, first day patient setup position definition and recording, daily/regular Source to Skin Distance (SSD) read-out, daily/regular field size confirmation verification, pre-setup patient verification, and machine accessory verification. The completion of these workflow actions require recordation back to a computer information system, which is placed outside the medical procedure room.
In a conventional solution, the execution of the following workflows requires several more steps. First, record the data inside the medical procedure room on an intermediate device. This may be accomplished by using stand-alone recording devices inside the room, such as a camera to capture setup photos, physical taking of notes (on notepads or post-it notes) to capture setup notes/SSD, and standalone devices like a tablet or smart phone to take electronic notes. Second, a medical personnel (e.g., a physician, a nurse, or a technician) walks to a medical device control console (also referred to as “treat workstation” or “Verify and Record (V&R) console workstation”) outside the device room. Third, the medical personnel enters the data into the Verify and Record console application in one of several ways. For example, the medical personnel can (a) set up a photo transfer by (i) connecting the camera to the treatment workstation via a physical cable or wireless connection, (ii) opening the setup photo import feature in the treatment workstation, (iii) selecting the correct photo from the list of photos captured on the camera's memory card, and (iv) assigning the photo to the correct field/fields in the correct radiation therapy plan of the current patient, or (b) manually enter the setup note or the SSD written down on the physical paper-pad/post-it into the correct field on the console application. In addition, the verification of patient and machine accessories can be conducted by scanning electronic identifier tags like bar codes for patient and machine accessory verification requires a dedicated tag reader like a bar code scanner installed inside the device room.
One drawback of conventional solutions is the inconvenience and manually intensive approach. The medical personnel has to walk out of the medical procedure room and perform additional actions on the device control console computer, located outside the medical procedure room, in order to complete a workflow. For example, the medical personnel attaches the camera via the connector cable to the computer, launch the photo import feature on the console application to setup photo transfer. Another drawback is the increased probability and risk of human error during the transfer, such as the user may attach the setup photo to the wrong plan/field, or the user may enter the value or notes incorrectly from the physical notepad into the system due to illegibility of the note or an error in copying. There also potentially could be an increased risk in the introduction of an error as the user has to perform the action (like entering the setup note or the SSD) twice—once inside the medical procedure room, and then again at the console outside the medical procedure room. A further drawback is the higher costs with the existing solutions, such as purchasing an additional device like a bar code scanner connected with the medical device for reading the popular QR codes.
Accordingly, it is desirable to have a mobile system and method for simplifying the workflow process in a high-energy radiation treatment environment.